Dissertation

Dissertation on the editorial illustrations of Gadaffi.

I have found this video on youtube of all the dictators, showing Robert Mugabe morning over his lost friends and shows his fond memories of them hanging out as friends. This video is supposedly an advert for the restaurant Nando's. I have found the website which links to the video written by the Mirror. I am not completely sure if the advert is real or just an viral. I am finding it hard to believe its genuine because how close it is to the line. 

The lonely President of Zimbabwe reminisces about happier times spent with fallen tyrants in the Last Dictator Standing video, promoting the chicken restaurant’s six-pack meal.

He slips into a nostalgic daydream, remembering how the pair used to play fight with water guns, with the Libyan leader clutching a distinctive golden machine gun.

Another scene shows Mugabe and fallen Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein half-stripped to swimming trunks, gleefully making ‘sand angels’ on the beach.

The Zimbabwe leader is also shown giggling as he pushes South Africa’s apartheid-era president PW Botha on a swing, as Mary Hopkins’ ‘Those were the days’ rings out.

In the last amusing flashback, Mugabe is depicted recreating Kate Winslet and Leo DiCaprio’s famous romantic pose from Titanic with Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, while standing on a tank.

The advert ends with a glum-looking Mugabe sitting alone at his dinner table with the tagline “At this time of year, no one should have to eat alone.”

 

 

Creating Logo's for 'Random Lobster'

I have been briefed by a film student called Rhory Danneills, he wants a new name and logo to support his film company. This logo will be seen on promotional video's for nightclubs in Bristol. As a team we talked through some names we could work on we came up with some Ideas's but the one that rally stood out was Random Lobster. With some supported research and some visual ideas from rhory I started creating the logo. 

Below is my visual process, starting with research, first drafts and final image. 

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Box set?

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I have briefly had the idea of maybe making a box set to accompany the book jacket i am currently designing for 'one flew over the cuckoo's nest'. I thought it would be an interesting idea to make a set of novels that tackles the issue of mental health. These books could have a similar approach to design of the front cover. 

Digital retailers

As for my design working for digital retailers such as Amazon or Water Stones, I have tested even when small, it’s intriguing enough to catch the eye and not to detailed for the customer.

Here i have mocked up how my design would work on a small scale on the book retailers Water Stones, I wanted to see if my design was to detailed but I have found that is not the case. The cover looks interesting, catchy colours and intriguing, tempting the customer to click and have a closer look at the novel.  

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Contemporary book design

I have been looking at the current market of book design, especially looking at the website of the booksellers Water Stones. On the website I have been particularly looking at the genre that is related to the book i am currently redesigning 'One flew over the cuckoo's nest' which is fiction. I have chosen to narrow it down to the best sellers and the current design out for one flew over the cuckoo's nest. 

Looking at all the designs for these books, I have noticed that the reoccurring trend was mostly photographs with a large bold typeface. I found this style quite generic and boring, and doesn't relate to my specialism, which is illustration. I am going to keep these deigns in mind but I want to explore how I can push the expected. The current one flew over the cuckoo's nest book has the same generic cover design, depicting a photo of a hall way in a mental health hospital with white blocky text running over it, I am not overall impressed with the design, it could be much more considered and not so obvious. I challenge my self to tackle all this point. 

Making christmas cards

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Evaluation- SPP

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but... have I answered the brief? This is why I have. 

Evaluation

I wanted to make my design very original, and vastly different from other entries. I defiantly steered clear from the cliché images; by hitting from a new angle i was able to create a completely new and fresh approach! That hasn't been seen before. Originality is key.

I have been asking friends and family of a variety for passing comment on the design, the resuming opinion was that everyone liked it. And I found that for new readers it built a bridge of the unknown, which was something that I wanted to tackle. Making the book more approachable but still having all the underline issues the book tackles just seen in a metaphor. 

My own individual way of connecting with the book was defiantly having the opportunity to listen to the audio book, as I am dyslexic, reading the book was a big challenge, so the audio was like a door being opened. I am glad I experienced the book in this way as the narrator Christian Slater's voice was so atmospheric, I could envision the novel better. The metaphors really stood out for me, in a different/ more relatable way they described the issues tackled in the book.  

I made sure that I looked at the cover design and template before I designed, so I could work my design around. The format was set at the start, this way my design could work straight onto the format of the book.

I think my design could be described as striking because it is so different, so will stand out from he rest. The imaginative content is something I feel I really pushed, testing what the public would be used to seeing and changing it! Its place in the market is undeniable; the status of the book along will elevate the design. I have tested the book on a bookshelf and it really caught my eye. I have made an effort toward this book jacket being cohesive as a whole and that the front cover can defiantly be strong enough to stand on its own two feet alone in a book shop. As for my design working for digital retailers such as Amazon, I have tested even when small, it’s intriguing enough to catch the eye and not to detailed for the customer not to misunderstand.

I have made a design takes a lot of imagination which a strong concept that links in with the content of the book that has not been approached like this before. I have used a mixture of hand rendered type then all the rest of the cover has kept to Myriad Pro, this keep continuity throughout the layout. I have been proof read and made all of the necessary changes. I believe new contempory design is what new designers make it, as long as its eye catching and new, it will receive positive attention.

I have looked current quirky book design, I have looked at a book shop Water Stones, this research lead me to realising that most of the books in this genre have book covers that I consider boring, most having a photograph with a bold large type face over the top. I wanted to do something much more illustrative!
I have a strong point of difference from my competitors as I have taken such an alternative approach. My design could be seen as quite vague but I have made sure that I have involved the shortened section of the metaphor on the back cover to make a link, both hand rendered. I have been inspired by this project and have really embraced my specialism, which is illustration and integrated it into a story that I have loved for a long time. I am very impressed with what I have achieved over this unit, it has lead me to do some different techniques and processes that have opened my eyes. My final piece has been a particular highlight for me creating my display book bringing my process together. 

Printed Display Book.

This is my final display book PDF, that I took print. 

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My Final printed document. 

I am happy with the print out of the final display book.

 

Display Book!

I am now at the prosees of design a booklet named the Design Booklet. This booklet is support my work, it could be called a shorter, neater sketchbook. It's to record my design process by showing the best highlights from the project, showing my step by step actions toward my design. I have involved the first two short projects and the 3rd long project in the Specialist Professional Practice unit. I have made my designed my booklet to keep to to the same colour palette as my book cover so its correspondent with my book cover.

When we where firstly briefed on what we should produce for our display book, we talked through as as a class on how the brief dispcriped it then wrote it down on a large board, this really helped with my recognistion of what i needed to produce. The key thing that where brought up that should be invovled in the display book where:

Tell story of projects without need for verbal explanation

Edited highlights

Section into projects if helps clarity- provide structure 

Physical book and a PDF to be handed in

I wanted to give my booklet an extra edge from the typical display book by making my display book have a cut out holes running through the book, this hole gets smaller. The hole is the image of the main illustration of the rabbits hole. I have done this so as a reader looking at my design book you can see my design process, from the start then as you make your way through the book each hole gets smaller until the end when you can see the last page where you can see the illustration as a whole. I wanted my design to reflect my book cover so i have kept to using the same typeface and making all the images range centre. 

When I was first told we where we had to make display book and we had to make them personal to our projects, I instantly envisioned a round book. I had researched different ways that people had gone about making round books. It when i actually sat down and thought about how i would actually make and produce the display book in this way i realised that it would much to hard to get it designed, printed then cut. So i decided that a square book with a cut out circle in the centre was a much better idea and would look effective for the design. 

I have made a small moquette of my display book that helped me with the layout of the book.I printed all the pages out and cut out all the rabbit holes, I layered all of the pages and bound the edges with staples. This process helped me layout out the layout of my book.

when i started cutting i designed the book, I had something in mind that i had seen in another book called 'The Hungry Caterpillar' this book also has a hole in, to show the caterpillars journey through all the fruit as he eats them! I loved the way this book was laid out and gave the reader the opportunity to see through the book. I wanted to achieve this feeling to my design book. 

Final design for 'One flew over the Cuckoo's nest' book jacket.

After much deliberation with myself and asking opinions of others I have come to the conclusion that this text is best suited at the bottom of the page. I think this because as a reader you have the chance to read the blurb and digest it then read the metaphor at the bottom which should link in with the already seen, read, front and back information. Hopefully, from what i have tested it has the most impact, with the realisation of the relivence to the metaphor in the novel to the illustration. 

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Evaluating my design process. 

I feel happy with the result. I have felt through out this project 'as it is named' Specialist Professional Practice, I have indeed kept to my specialism which is illustration, I have embraced my area in the form of a book cover for Penguin. This project was a great opportunity to experiment with my own techniques on a book layout canvas, which I found at times very challenging but enjoyable. The reason I chose to do this brief in particular was because of all these pointers and also due to the book title in particular was of interest as the its one of my favorite film and I had never read he book and saw this as a great opportunity embrace the novel and delve into the issues that the book tackles. This was very interesting, and even more when it came to some how translating it on to a single book cover... When it came to approaching the imagery on the book I felt that transcripting my favorite parts and choosing a metaphor that I felt personally connected to and inspired me instantly with ideas was the best way to answer the brief. As it came apparent in the past, I particularly tend to illustrate animals with human characteristics, this metaphor simply jumped out at me! 

I wanted to have fun with this brief and do what I do best, so I started illustrating firstly on rough pieces of paper then I used Photoshop to bring them to life. I was drawing some intense looking rabbits and wolfs, up against each other/ fighting or hiding. I wanted to experiment with what kind of layouts I wanted and in particular focus on the relationship between the two characters in relation to the book. I wasn't taking into account the illustration style as yet because I already knew that I wanted the end illustration to be sketched in black ink and watercolour.

After a few critiques at university it came apparent that I needed to push the idea along! It was discussed how I have in my previous illustration I had used mirrored images, this lead on to the discussion of the Roschach tests. So I had a go at making my own, still keeping to the idea of the metaphor, I was using water colours pressed together to making a variation of images including rabbits, wolfs, lips, circles and just random shapes. I enjoyed making these a lot, they where very affective and took no time to produce. I tested them on to some book layouts and they didn't seem right, the front page was left with too much space and looked quite dull. I carried on, then a 'eureka' moment happened! I realised in another critique that one of my favourite images that i had illustrated roughly was a rabbit down a hole. I started to visualise this image with the circles i had been printing with my watercolours, I tested a few out and they where brilliant but I wasn't happy with rabbit. 

The rabbit started off as a cartoon, I drew many with all kinds of expressions but I didn't like them in context. So I drew one realistic rabbit, an instant success! This rabbit had more expression, it looked venerable and small, I placed this little white rabbit into the dark sketchy inky black hole I had illustrated, and it fitted well. I then edited out sections of the hole so I could under lay my circle watercolour prints. This gave the image extra dimensions and a chance for it not to be all black and white, this image could be broken down and when put in relation with the book I think it would say a lot. -How the White rabbit is lost, venerable, innocent and being seen in a black deep hole which is in parts colourful and crazy which suggests the metal hospital. The fact the rabbit is down the hole shows him as hiding from something (the wolf whom is the nurse is the book). If interoperated correctly this image encompasses the story well.

The introduction of the wolfs lack of presence was spotted; I lacked the basic scary, angry wolf that the rabbit is hiding from. I needed to resolve this for my illustration to tell the metaphor clearly. I stared testing ideas of how the wolf's presence could be hinted in the book design with out pulling to much attention away from the image central illustration (rabbit hole). I thought up having the feet of the wolf creeping in at the bottom, or his ears at the top, to have a shadow of a wolf or wolf paw prints. I did illustrate a few ways and made my own paw prints with my fist cover in paint then press on to a page, which worked but didn't fit. I wanted the wolf to be disturbing, so it affected the rabbit hole, I started to draw a wolf hand scratching down the page, I loved this idea of the wolf scratching the colours of the rabbit hole down the page. Once i had illustrated and keeping to the same illustration technique, it looked great together. I find the image leads my eye down the page which in it's own right tells a story/ narrative. 

Now i had all of my main imagery done I was then positive in starting the process putting my book jacket together. My first challenge was, what to put in the background behind my illustrations, I started off putting a block colour behind which I disliked instantly, I need texture. I took a photography of the ground, this image had multi tones. I overlaid this image over my illustrations and light grey background, then I lowered the opacity levels to make the photograph transparent. This gave the image texture with the multi toning, this helped blend in the background with the illustration, therefore making the image not look so so placed.  

I decided on the typeface Myriad Pro, because its a sans serif font, its readable when small and it was the closest to my original choice Gill Sans but Myriad Pro had better 'G's'. I have used this font for all the text on the book cover, blurb, spine, font cover quotes and author. I like how thin this typeface is, I didn't want the typeface to distract the reader away from the illustration. I have used this typeface for the title in a 14pt unlike the body text which is 10pt,  the title still needs to be resolved.

I have put in all my text on the back and spine, I am trying to keep everything rang centre. With the blurb on the back i have made the circle on the front reflect on the back but mad the opacity very see through so I could over lay the text, I designed it so the circle would almost frame the blurb. 

Tweaking final designs...

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Here are some examples I designed for my overall book cover. I was happy with the result and how the book was looking, so decided to email my design buddy ( a professional designer that was paired with to  help and improve my practice) to get his opinion. He was very helpful and loved the illustration style and theme. His critisims were that the design was a little vague to him and thought it would be better if I some how refereneced the metaphor more.

He also suggested I change the text for the title to be more hand rendered. 

 

I took on these constructive criticisms and worked on them. I wanted to see how I could arrange the space so the main focus was still central. When I tried to place hand rendered text on the previous design it looked too busy.

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These are the two ways I have designed my final cover, I have rearranged the layout, so the hand rendered title is know on the front, the added metaphor is on the back, the quote has been moved down with the name of the author on the front page and the rabbit splat has its new place about the the blurb on the back. This new arrangement is much better, but i am undecided on which design above looks better? The segment (metaphor) text at the top on the back or at the bottom.  This may seem a very simple change but I feel like the arrangement of this particular text is important, and if where it should be read before or after the blurb... 

 

 

A trip to D&AD

As a class we took a trip to london to meet D&AD for a briefing on the new briefs out for students 2011. We where told to meet in Brick Lane, London to the head quarters of LBI. Unfortunatly as there was a lot of traffic on the way to london we where a tad late but nicely of them they waited for us. After a delayed start, they started off introducing them selfs, at this discussion we had three industry professionals present Jodie from Laminar, Ivan from Brothers and Sisters and Jon a copywriter at LBI. They started talking to us about the new blood graduate academy they to newly graduated students, they showed us what we could experience and sold it to us, I was very interesting in this.  

Two of the industry professionals took it turns to talk through with us on how they personally get inspired in there work. Here are some notes I took for there advice that I found helpful, Jodie: take in a brief, don't get to caught up into what you need to produce. who are you focusing the brief to?        Jon: Don't be to self critical, change your environment. Look at more then the obvious! Experience what the brief offers. 

After the group where split into groups of four, I was with five other creatives most of which i hadn't met before. We where given one the briefs to discuss on how we would approach and resolve it. The brief was a new one for the 2011, On how spotify wants to be more interactive with facebook. As a group we made two mind maps of all our ideas, we where told to focus on one work to focus our creative ideas toward. The brief wanted us to tackle the issue that spotify is on facebook but it hasn't been very successful as yet, how to make it approachable to users though clever advertising. 

Our ideas where based on the idea of the sharing of music being the main attraction combining facebook and spotify, we came up with the idea of a Music Magpie, with the idea that most of the time you steal ideas off your friends and how it could be a way of introducing people to new music would be main object of attraction.  

We then had a lead spokes women to voice our ideas, they didn't come across to clearly as we did have a lot of ideas on the sheet which where voiced over our main idea... for some reason. We had positive feed back and told that we should of narrowed our ideas, which we did, but wheren't made apparent. 

I very much enjoyed the day, it taught me a lot in how to approach a brief and i found it exciting and refreshing meeting new creatives. They gave us a D&AD book to keep which was a lovely. 

Returning to visual report .

 

We recently had a tutorial on how successful our visual projects went for project 1 and 2, I had to give in my reports so they could analysed by our tutors. In this tutorail we where told what what we need to change, for project 1 I made a constanina book on which I hand drew a visual time line, they really liked this outcome. For my project 2, I made the same kind of constrantina book for this report but this wasn't so successful, i was told that my design was dated and they didn't like that i runned with the theme of 'Blue Sky Thinking'. 

So I have changed the colour of my design from a blue to a fresh white and added a better time lapse image of the video we made to the layout. 

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More research that influenced my work!

These are a few more images that have influenced my work. I wanted to look at these because they reminded me of what I want to achieve in my work, all these images where shown to me and gave me an extra boost in my work.

All these images have a veyr clever layout and use of colour, they play on the space and words cleverly, very considered. I want to take ispiration for all these iamges, in how typefaces link in well with the medium used for the imagery. 

tried, tested typography

I wanted to keep the title for the front cover simple by have a standard font. I have tested a few different typefaces, to see if any work better than the body font Myriad Pro, all the fonts I have preferred are sans serif fonts because they are simple, I didn't want a fancy font. I found that for the body that at first I wanted to use Gil Sans, after using in a small point size in block text, I found the 'G's weren't didn't look right. So I settled on Myriad Pro for the body text, I have used the same font thoughtout my design. I tried the body font for the title, It works well but I am considering having a frefreshing change for the title, hense my testing below.

I want to briefly talk though each type and what it has lead me to: 

Colour thumbnails

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I am now at the stage where I am choosing what colour I want my background to be. At first I was decided on the colour to be grey tones, but after printing out a tester the printer did a printing error which lead me to change my mind about the colour choice. The print out made the cover have a tinge of green, I felt like this was more successful, it made the image more powerful. It changed my decision, and I printed out the contact sheet above with all the different colours I have considered, mainly focusing on the greens. 

After having a group critique, where I asked about my colour choices. The overall decision was that the green was stronger, as a colour it gave my decision a more clinical look and also as the surround colour around the rabbit hole looked more like a grass. 

It was said that the best outcome out of all the above selections, is the middle second row image from the left. It is more a grey/green shade, as this design wouldn't work if the text and illustrations didn't stand out from the book cover, so the background would have to be the lighter shade. 

Breaking down the book cover.

This is the design for my final design, I want to talk through each part of the design and why i have made these decisions. 

(I still haven't yet decided on the background colour choice as I want to base some of my favourite outs and show them to my target audience to see there reactions! I also need to still consider the type to make it perfect, which includes experimentation with the front page title font.)

I have been on the Penguin website and looked at the guide lines again.. to make sure that I am clear on what is need and what the guidelines say to involve. I have downloaded the template that my design has to fit to from the Penguin website. I have made sure that my design for my cover works well with the template and doesn't overlap the bleed.

I have made my design very central, mostly all of the elements to the cover is ranged centre, illustration and text. This all makes the design correspond from front, spine to back. I want the centre to to be the focus point, but I have broken that trend in one point of the design in the wolf hand illustration. I have done this purposely because again the hand is coming out of the middle spine of the book but spreading across to the front cover, scraping down the right side of the design. I found this to be pleasing to the eye, as the middle illustration draws you in and the hand going down the right lead you eye down to the title of the book, it reads well down the page! 

I have decided on my final design, the illustration on the front which lead me to draw my second of the wolfs hand scraping down the page. The style of the book cover links well with the illustrations, I have used the mediums ink and water colour overlapped, I found this technique most successful. I found that the background colours where to blank so I decided to explore textures that i could again overlap, these where of a scratched up wall, by adding this to the design I was able to make it have a multi toned effect which worked better against the illustrations. 

With the spine of the book i have desided to go for a simple design, I have used the boday text that I have been using through out the book cover design which is Myrid Pro. I used this font for both the author and the title, but i felt that the spine needed a little detail! So i thought back to my ink testing, by chance i have made some ink splats with my finger then i drew ears on them. This created some hand rendered fun little rabbit heads, I had put this rabbit splat on my back cover for detailing, so I thought it would correspond if I put it on tot the spine in-between the author and the title. 

I felt like something extra should be on the back cover of the book to break up the design more to make the layout more interesting. I wanted to make all the text on the text on the cover the same (Myriad Pro,) exploring font size to show hierarchy. I have painted the books title in watercolour, with the original thought that i could put it on the front. I tried this out but the hole front cover looked too busy, so I tried it out on the back at the top of the page. This worked well, I felt like it brought some of the medium used on the front for the illustrations on to the back.